A Sting In The Tale
by vesine
Summary: The Boy from District 3 makes a different decision and everything changes. (Or how A Tracker Jacker Nest is far more dangerous to a gamemakers storyline than might first appear) {In other words the story of 5 other Victors who aren't named Peeta Mellark or Katniss Everdeen and how they won the hunger games from one fateful choice} [A part of the Grim Grey Path to Freedom verse]
1. Everything Changes

_**A Sting in the Tale**_

_Yes he stays by the camp full time. He got stung too, when they drew the tracker jackers in by the lake." says Rue. _

_Except in this world the boy from 3 wasn't at the lake when the tracker jackers came and everything changes. _

**The Arena **

Originally Marko Amon hadn't planned on approaching the Careers with his plan involving the mines and the supplies until the day after tomorrow.

It had been a whim that had taken him to the Cornucopia two days early.

A whim and two cannons.

He had originally planned to scout out the cornucopia the morning of the 5th day bright and early but decided against it.

A small decision to make. Instead he decided to try and locate where Thresh was. Best to know where the unseen enemy hid.

Such a small decision.

The Girl from 1 and the Girl from 4 had both appeared in the sky that night and Marko had a nagging feeling in his chest that this was it.

Not an opportunity created by his own personal manipulation of the mines but one placed into his lap.

All of the Career Pack were dead within five minutes of him reaching the Cornucopia.

District 3 weren't careers. Most 3 Victors were physically weak and in direct combat most of them would die easily. Of the 9 Victors from 3 maybe two would stand better than even odds in a truly fair fight. Yet District 3 had nearly double the Victors of any other outlier District and were only a Victor behind that of the Career District of 4.

This was because District 3 never fought fair if they could avoid it.

The pen is mightier than the sword and the brain is a more effective weapon than the fist.

District 3 won by intellect when it could and it did so, according to the Career districts, far too often.

That is why when Marko cuts the throats of the pair from 2 and the boy from 1, all still unresponsive to the outside world from Tracker Jacker venom, he doesn't feel any guilt at all.

He just smiles at the thought he might actually go home.

**The Mentor Room **

In the Capitol Brutus at the 2 station gives a groan and buries his face in his hands.

Over at the 1 station Gloss slams his fist against the desk and starts muttering curses.

At the 3 station Beetee Latier smiles slightly.

It's been six years since they've had a Victor last.

They normally have to wait longer but Beetee won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Perhaps now is a good time to equal the score of District 4 once again.

**The Arena **

Katniss Everdeen lies relatively still although spasms from the Tracker Jacker venom still rack her body occasionally.

Rue Priestly from District 11 look stricken by something as she watches the girl from 12.

Ten minutes ago the sky was painted with the pictures of the remainder of The Career Pack.

Had they been alive Katniss Everdeen would have made a brilliant ally. A big sister figure that Rue could have trusted.

The Game has changed and Katniss can't be helpful anymore in the way Rue wished she could have been.

Rue knows she is not Katniss' little sister and with the biggest threat in the arena gone after the death of the Career Pack the girl from 12 is not helpful anymore.

Now she is a threat.

As Rue places her bag packs cloth back over the Girl on Fires face she hopes that Prim will forgive her.

Muffled sounds begin.

Less than five minutes later another Cannon goes.

**The Mentor Room **

Chaff watches as his best friend gets up from his station and starts to poor himself a very large glass of vodka.

Chaff feels a pang in his heart because Peeta Mellark isn't going to last much longer either.

He has been sorely weakened by Cato's sword cut. Inflicted before the boy from 2 was fully affected by the Tracker Jacker venom.

The Boy from District 3 is also hunting now as well though who knows how long that will last.

Seeder whispers to him that with the death of the Careers and Katniss Everdeen this is the first time ever that District 11 has got two tributes in the final eight.

Final six even.

District 11 has had a Victor less than a decade ago but if they can bring a fourth home they will match Districts 5 and 10. No longer will 11 be a weak district for Victors. Instead they will rank along with some of the stronger outlier Districts. The ones who leave an imprint only lesser than Districts 7 and 9.

Chaff thinks of the families in 11 that will be saved from tesserae this year by a victory.

He watches silently as his friend begins to down his glass.

**The Arena **

Julio Sinclair never thought he would last till the final eight.

He is now in the final six.

He escaped the Bloodbath through a lot of luck and also a not insignificant amount of skill.

His clubbed foot made him underestimated.

The Careers didn't target the cripple. Why target the poor cripple from District 10? He's not going anywhere.

Julio has been left limping with his club foot all his life. He escapes the Cornucopia with a bag of supplies and waits for the Careers to hunt him down.

Day after day he waits and day after day they do not come.

Then on the 5th night he sees the sky light up with the faces of two of the Career Pack.

Julio does not believe in any gods although his Abuelita still follows the banned old religion. She prays to that God still. Julio has never believed in any Gods. Not with the Hunger Games always beckoning their terrible finger of death.

On the sixth night he sees the faces of the rest of the Career pack and for the first time in his life he thinks Abuelita might have a point.

Maybe there is a God.

**The Capitol **

Gilbert Oxford doesn't mentor as often as he would like these days.

District 10 has four victors and although he hates William with all his heart, loves Saphir like a daughter and will never forget his dear departed friend Angela, Gilbert wouldn't mind more company.

Julio is a singularly impressive young man. His crippled foot should have damned him in the bloodbath.

Julio is in the final eight (nay final six) now and Gilbert thinks that perhaps it is time to match 7 and 9 with five Victors. Angela would have wanted another Victor after all.

**The Arena **

Finch McCarthy doesn't know how she's still alive.

After all she nearly laughed herself to death after she saw Marko Amon cut the throats of the career pack like a slaughterhouse worker would pigs in District 10

She came close again to dying of laughter again when she watched, with baited breath, as the little twelve year old from 11 smothered Katniss Everdeen with as much regretful emotion as she imagined King Richard the Third did when he performed the same action on his nephews in the Tower of London.

Finch decides to herself that, with much of the serious competition gone, this year is 5s year.

Hiding might not be the best strategy anymore.

Time to be proactive.

**The Mentor Room **

Sarah Aurelius (née Smith) is easily the oldest Victor mentoring in the room currently.

She doesn't need to mentor by any means. In fact when she does it causes genuine heart palpitations in more than one Victor.

Abernathy can't even look her in the eye.

(Although given what she did to him that's really no surprise.)

She is sick now though.

So sick.

She knows she won't mentor another year. Not like this. Trapped in a wheelchair. The frailness of her body making her still agile mind curse every second.

Her girl this year though fascinates her.

She is a criminal of course, with the system for 5 there was never any doubt, but unlike so many other 5 tributes the girl is smart.

This girl could win.

And wouldn't that be a legacy to leave?

One Last Victor

Sarah's body might be weak but her mind is as sharp and cruel as ever.

Sarah smiles at the thought of another win.

Her smile as ever doesn't reach her eyes.

Even now.

**The Arena **

Thresh is astounded when he sees the Career packs faces light the sky that night.

In the distance he hears another cannon boom not long later.

He hopes Rue is still alive and Thresh realises that, if his math is correct, that he is not only in the final eight in the games but the final six.

District 11 has a good chance of coming out of this with a Victor.

Thresh smiles in his corn field and thinks it might be time to go hunting rather than hiding.

**The Mentor Room **

Seeder has mentored nearly fifty years of Hunger Games.

She still thinks it isn't quite punishment enough for what she did in the arena.

She could have been kind.

She wasn't.

No matter how nice Seeder is to the other Victors, to everyone, she can never wash away what she did in the 29th Hunger Games.

She will try though.

She did with Chaff, she did with Melody, and she'll do it again this time if she can with Thresh.

Seeder isn't a monster.

She just needs to prove that to herself one more time.

* * *

_Hello Vesine here_

_To those reading The Grim Grey Path _

_Don't worry I'm still working on it. _

_I have reverse writers block (so many ideas that I'm trying not to have every chapter be 30k words long and an overall story over 1mil words.) This story is in many respects an apology. Mainly because it is pretty much pre written and also because its been an idea niggling at the back of my mind for as long as I've read the series. _

_All of these tributes can win the games and I will in all likelihood update all 5 tributes as victors. _

_Peeta will die. _

_This is the constant. _

_If you are a fan of the Grim Grey Path please feel happy because a chapter is coming soon (a proper soon not a Valve soon) and I promise due to its content and how it needs to be portrayed I believe the delay is well justified. _

_Yours _

_John Wellington Wells (Alternativley Vesine) _

_(Reviews are as ever welcome) _

_(P.S If you think there are any spoilers here. Well you're right.) _


	2. Julio Sinclair

**Julio Sinclair**

**Day 7**

Julio Sinclair is 18 years old and is still alive in the 74th Hunger Games.

The Capitol doesn't really understand how and is bemused.

Seneca Crane doesn't really understand how and is irate.

President Snow doesn't really understand how and is ambivalent.

Back home in District 10 they dont really understand how but are happy.

Julio doesn't really understand how most of all as he wonders what has happened.

Julio might be strong but with a club foot, that significantly hobbles his speed, Julio can't move all that quickly and in the Hunger Games that's usually a death sentence.

Julio think perhaps his family might understand how. Or at least have reasons.

His Abuelita would be saying it was her God that was helping Julio.

His Uncle Norman would be remarking how he had taught Julio everything he knew and that his knowledge was saving his nephew. He's never much liked and definitely doesn't follow Abuelita's religion. Uncle Norman has different beliefs.

His little sister Maria would be saying it's because her Julio will always come home to her.

Maria is five years old and doesn't understand The Hunger Games all that well yet.

Whatever the reasons Julio should have been dead.

But now it's the morning of the seventh day of the Hunger Games and the arena has been winnowed down to a quarter of the starting tributes.

Interviews will be happening at home now and Julio starts chuckling to himself about how the Capitol will attempt to spin his progress.

Julio doesn't plan on leaving his spot any time in the near future. The death of the Career Pack, and whoever the other cannon was after the faces in the sky last night, have ensured that there must be a surplus of sponsors left without their usual horses in the race given the gift of breakfast he received this morning.

Patience has served Julio well so far.

He doesn't feel the need to move just yet.

Another cannon goes.

**Day 8**

It was The Pair from 12.

The Girl on Fire and her Lover Boy.

Both dead now of course.

Julio doesn't know which of the two died first. If he was to put some money on it however he would definitely think it was Mellark first.

Given how close a death the first cannon was to the faces of The Pack in the sky perhaps Mellark was killed by Everdeen with the rest of the Pack and this morning Everdeen's guilt became too much for her.

District partner kills District partner.

It's happened before.

Julio realises it's just a guess on his part but Julio thinks this makes the most sense.

He has always been smart.

Perhaps he is too smart in some ways as The Capitol seems to be getting temperamental with him for staying put and safe. Had he not been wilier the angry bear muttation might well have done more than just give him a fright.

Julio managed to kill the bear with a sharlpy whittled stick through the roof of the beast's mouth.

He thanks god this isn't the 30th games, the bear muttation could at least be fought. Julio never could have lasted against the horrible mutts they used in the 30th games.

It's poetic in a way. His kill of the bear mutt. Julio thinks it's very reminiscent of Woof's Victory in the 14th Games against that monster of a dog muttation the first Victor of 8 killed. Julio thinks to himself that hopefully he might eventually get an actual weapon rather than relying on his wits and what useful knowledge his uncle imparted to his lame nephew.

Julio chuckles to himself as a light dinner comes down in a parachute.

For the first time in his life Julio quietly prays in thanks to a God.

**Day 9**

Julio gets lucky on day 9 without a doubt.

A snapped twig wakes him and allows him to hide from the powerhouse of a tribute that is Thresh.

Thresh is certainly the most dangerous opponent to face unarmed and Julio doubts his pointed stick will make a difference.

Thresh doesn't find him, but as the boy from 11 moves around searching, Julio has an idea on how to take the boy down.

Find where Thresh is hiding and finish him with subtlety rather than force.

Julio tracks Thresh then, like Uncle Norman taught him with the wolf mutts that hunt the livestock, back to where the big 11 boy is hiding.

Once again someone underestimated the cripple.

The arena has turned into a field of corn when Julio stops tracking Thresh as the big 11 boy quickly disappears inside.

What Julio does next is something only a truly loving God can forgive.

Julio begins gathering dried leaves and branches throughout the latter half of the day and quietly begins placing them at various spots along the cornfields edge.

He hopes this will build suspense in the Capitol.

Julio doesn't even need to mime anything before the silver parachute comes down with what he really needs now.

Matches.

A strong gust of wind blowing past him and deeper into the cornfield is all the encouragement he needs.

Julio begins setting the fires.

Within half an hour the cornfield is ablaze and Julio only hears a couple of anguished screams from within before sudden silence.

The silence is broken by a cannon.

Julio prays for the soul of Thresh.

**Day 10 **

Julio is in the final four and is waiting for something. A sign that the final confrontation is beginning.

He hears nothing for an entire day.

Julio has supplies, his actions on day 9 ensured that he would after all, but Julio realises that this quiet state of affairs will not last with 4 people.

He waits for the inevitability of the final showdown.

**Day 11 **

Julio does not expect to be woken up by an explosion. When he hears two Cannons erupt in quick succession afterwards Julio begins praying that maybe, just maybe, he will be one of the absurdly lucky Victors. With only a single kill he will be among the very lowest in addition to being one of the Victors who doesn't have to kill in close personal circumstances. Thresh's death is already enough guilt for Julio.

But Julio is not as lucky as he hopes.

Another Cannon doesn't go and Julio decides he might as well make the most of breakfast before seeking his opponent.

He doesn't need to find her. She finds him.

He's barely even started eating before she comes.

Somehow Julio isn't surprised that it's her.

It could have been the clever boy from 3 who Julio now suspects might have killed the Careers.

(It would be a very 3 thing to do)

It isn't the girl from 11 who clearly lasted way longer than even the most optimistic of betters could have imagined.

(In his darker thoughts Julio thinks the little girl might have killed someone herself. He hopes that he's wrong. He hopes her soul is untainted.)

His final opponent could only have ever been the one that was like him.

The perpetually underestimated fox faced girl from District 5.

The past few day have treated the girl well. She doesn't look particularly starved but this does not surprise Julio.

It has been an outlier district free for all since the death of The Career Pack and the Lovers from 12 and although it's likely the 3 boy and Thresh would get a lot of sponsorship no one would be suffering in a games like this with no clear favourite.

There's too much money to be made in this scenario.

Julio isn't surprised when the girl calls his name.

They did talk in training after all.

"Julio" The fox faced girl says politely.

"Finch" Julio returns in similar tones. "Some breakfast?"

Finch smiles at this. Julio does as well. It is an old reference to a games long since passed but with a Victor that is still well regarded by most other outliers and even The Capitol.

Courtesy never hurt anyone in Julio's opinion.

Finch takes him up on the offer of breakfast and the two sit, ten feet apart, locking eyes as they eat.

"What happened to the 11 girl and 3?" Julio asks.

Finch isn't weakened physically and Julio can't see any obvious weapons on her so what he hears next only surprises him a little.

"Mutual kill. Bird girl was surprisingly vicious and would have got away scot free if Mine-Boy hadn't decided on some last gasp revenge. It was an explosive ending to their little scrap." Finch replied. "Quite literally" Finch pauses before asking a question "Thresh?"

"There was a fire in the cornfield he hid in." Julio replies curtly.

It is left unsaid that Julio started the fire. Julio knowns in his heart though that Finch has put the pieces together.

"I didn't kill Mellark. Just so we're clear." Finch states.

"Who did? I thought Everdeen killed him after The Pack?" Julio asks with surprise.

Finch snorts with derision.

"You've been alone out here for too long Julio. It was the 11 girl who got both of the 12s."

"Bird girl had a sharp beak and sharper talons. I watched her and Everdeen as the faces for The Pack appeared. Everdeen was out of her mind with Tracker Jacker Venom. 11 used the cloth back of her bag pack." Finch explains with the air of an amused storyteller as she mimes an act of suffocation. "Abracadabra no more Girl on Fire. Mellark got killed with one of his little girlfriend's arrows." Finch mimes the act of stabbing downwards. "Abracadabra no more Lover Boy. She was a vicious little thing in the end. Was bursting with emotion when it came to killing Everdeen. Barely even flinched at killing lover boy. By the time she'd dealt Mine-Boy the mortal blow she barely even blinked at the act of killing."

Julio says a prayer, in his mind, for the little girl from 11.

"So here we are." Julio states with finality.

"And here we are" Finch agrees.

Julio sees the movement in Finch's shoulder as she throws something at him and dodges to the side just in time.

He curses as he recognises the sharp pointed star for what it is.

Julio refuses to end up skewered by a District 5 girl. He isn't going to die like the multitude of idiots from the 10th games.

Finch is smiling though and has retreated to a distance.

She's armed and Julio has barely anything. Only his sharpened stick. Julio says one last prayer and then does possibly the most stupid thing he can think of. But it's his only way to end this quickly. If at all.

He aims his pointed stick at the girl from 5. It is the only weapon he has, has had, all games.

He throws with all his strength at her.

Somehow it strikes true.

A fact Julio is almost as shocked about as Finch is.

Her lips attempt to move, to say something, but quickly the movement stops and she falls to the ground.

Her cannon goes shortly after. The point of the makeshift spear is lodged in the girl from 5s neck.

Julio almost can't believe it as the trumpets blare.

Somehow, against all the odds and like four others from 10 before him, Julio Sinclair has won the Hunger Games.

* * *

_Hello Vesine here _

_The Boy from District 10 wins the Hunger Games with only 2 kills to his name. Everyone underestimates The Cripple after all. Given how little we know about the District 10 boy he was a lot of fun to write and add some character to. Next up will likely be Thresh who is a bit better served character wise by the book as opposed to the blank slate offered by Julio. _

_Best Vesine _

_(Any Reviews,Faves and follows would be much appreciated.) _


	3. Thresh Reilly

**Thresh Reilly **

_**Day 7**_

Thresh Reilly isn't too surprised to have made it this far into the Hunger Games.

He scored highly in training and before the games he's pretty certain that only the Career boys, Mellark and maybe the boy from 10 could have fought him physically one on one with any chance of winning.

Even then Thresh would have fancied his chances against all of them.

Thresh never expected the games to play out as they have so far though.

The last of The Career Pack is out, gone, kaput, and really most sincerely dead.

Suddenly the game is wide open.

It seems whoever's left in the arena has realised that too because a cannon went shortly after The Career Packs faces appeared in the sky and another one went this morning.

A large part of Thresh hopes it wasn't little Rue who died. His district partner is a sweet girl who doesn't deserve to be in the games.

No one does really.

Then again part of him hopes that maybe she's gone peacefully so he doesn't end up having to kill her. It's the Hunger Games and a sweet little twelve year old can't win.

Thresh somehow isn't surprised when the shining sickle comes down from the sky. It's nothing like the ornate pronged trident that Odair was given in his games but it still must have cost a pretty penny.

He thinks what his big sister Jenny or his grandmother would think of what's about to happen and realises at this point they'd want to see him win.

Thresh sighs inwardly to himself.

He'll go hunting tomorrow.

**Day 8 **

Thresh's first reaction after seeing the faces in the sky the night before is to curse openly.

Never in his wildest dreams did he think the two shining stars from District 12 would be the faces he saw.

He has no idea who died first or how they died.

Frankly Thresh thinks the games have gone completely mad.

If he's right then the only ones left in the arena are himself, Rue, the boys from 10 and 3 as well as the girl from 5.

He curses again when he realises that only himself was viewed through the lens of a potential favourite before the games began of the tributes remaining.

The Girl from 5 was a forgettable nobody.

The Boy from 10 had a lame leg.

The Boy from 3 is diminutive and weak.

Rue is fucking twelve years old.

Thresh is beginning to have a headache when he nears the forest having walked from his corn field.

Just in time to see the girl from 5 look like she's fleeing for her life from something.

She looks terrified.

In the trees above both of them and close behind the girl there is something coming. Thresh can hear the branches creak and see the trees move slightly as the something gets ever closer to his and the girls location.

Almost certainly a mutt.

The fox faced girl catches a glimpse of him before darting back into the forest attempting to weave a difficult path and lose whatever happens to be in the trees.

The trees have stopped moving.

The mutt in the trees seems to be making a calculation.

The movement in the trees starts again but heads away from his location.

He thinks whatever the something in the trees is then it must at least be clever.

Thresh shudders at the thought.

Mutts can be terrible things especially if they have a degree of sense. Any person who's seen the 26th games can attest to that.

Thresh doesn't let his thoughts stray to the mutts from the 44th games.

He has nightmares enough as it is from this arena.

If Thresh spares a thought as to how good Rue is at moving through the tree tops he dismisses the idea the thing in the trees could have been her instantly.

He can't bring himself to even begin contemplating a world where the little tree hopping girl from his District can make someone run with as much fear in her eyes as the girl from 5 had.

It's just not possible.

**Day 9 **

Thresh is really regretting the decision to go hunting.

As the boy from 10 attempts to stab him in the leg once again with his bloody pointed stick Thresh thinks to himself he might have screwed up here.

He managed the element of surprise, but little else, against the crippled boy from 10 who apparently is better at one on one fighting than he looks.

Thresh's scythe is wedged in a tree after the 10 boy ducked a blow and 10 seems to really want to survive this fight.

Thresh does too but isn't sure he will anymore.

The two of them have been going at it for nearly twenty minutes and they've been anything but quiet.

Which is probably why what happens next surprises Thresh.

10 manages to sweep Thresh's legs out from under him and is about to aim his pointed stick into Thresh's chest before pausing mid action. The boy gives a few choking noises and sways for a moment or two before collapsing to the floor.

A cannon goes.

There nestled in a tree, just 8 feet away, is a very small figure with a thin tube like object in her hand.

It takes Thresh a moment to realise what the object is before his suspicion is confirmed when he looks at the 10 boy's body again. A small object is lodged in his back.

A dart.

The small figure has a blow gun.

Rue smiles at Thresh.

"Howdy Partner. Looks like you needed a hand there." Rue positively beams.

Thresh is mildly disturbed at this. Rue did just kill someone after all. Thresh is already feeling guilt for the part he played in the boy's death that is even worse than the considerable guilt he felt about the 7 boy he killed in the bloodbath.

"You alright Rue? Things been going ok?" Thresh asks his district partner. They're both 11 and Rue is a good person so Thresh is very confident she won't kill him at this point. Rue doesn't strike him as someone who wants to kill their own district partner. He thinks she's too sweet.

He's right of course.

The reaction the girl gives is so very much like the Rue he's known during training.

The arena is clearly affecting her as Rue looks significantly more sombre than she did a moment before.

"I'm fine Thresh but it's been a tough couple of days. Katniss was finished by tracker jackers. I really wanted to help her but I just couldn't in the end." Rue says quietly. She curls in on herself a little.

Thresh knows Rue really liked the girl from 12 and part of him wants to give her a hug.

It's hard losing someone you thought could be a friend. Even in here.

He attempts to distract her a little but the next thing he says only seems to make her feel worse.

"Do you have any idea what happened to Mellark?"

Rue pauses a moment but the answer she gives makes more than enough sense to Thresh.

"The Career pack turned on him. Cato cut him bad with a sword, but it was an arrow that killed him in the end."

That makes sense to Thresh. The girl from 1 got the bow that was in the pile at the cornucopia. His suspicion is that it was meant for Everdeen because 1 girl could hardly shoot in the bloodbath and it would easily explain Everdeen's ridiculously high score. 1 must have got a lucky shot. Thresh feels sorry for Mellark then. A lingering arrow wound is a painful way to go.

Therefore, Thresh isn't really surprised as to why Rue looks upset at Mellark's death as well.

She is after all a sensitive girl from what Thresh has seen in their time in training and on the train from 11.

From their time together he can tell she's dwelling on both 12 tributes deaths. It might just be a delayed reaction to her killing the 10 boy though. It's a hard thing. He knows from the 7 boy's death on the first day. Either way what he says next is meant with love and concern in an attempt to distract Rue from the pair from 12.

"Don't feel guilty Rue. Only one can make it out. There's no need to blame yourself."

Rue pauses for a moment and her eyes flash with something that Thresh thinks might be guilt.

He dismisses the thought instantly, his brain quickly reassuring him it's just Rue being her sensitive self.

Thresh thinks Rue must be a very sensitive soul indeed if she's guilty about the 12s.

It's not as if she killed them after all.

Rue quickly recovers herself and gives Thresh a smile. The next thing she says is initially a surprise but in the end he understands the reasoning.

"It's the final four Thresh and I don't want to kill you… But it's too late to ally with each other anymore. I think we should just walk away now. 10 was just me helping my District partner. Is that ok?" She asks hopefully.

Thresh gets it. Rue doesn't want to kill her District partner.

That's good.

Thresh really doesn't want to try and kill Rue.

With her dart gun he isn't sure he'd succeed.

Would he even want to? Even if it was his life on the line?

Thresh agrees with Rue. There can be no alliances.

"S'all right Rue. Friends though. Until…"

"Until the final two. If we make it that far."

Rue smiles as she says that.

Thresh hopes one of the others kill her. He's definitely not sure he can anymore.

Before she goes Thresh thinks back to his encounter with the fox faced 5 girl from the day before.

"Rue! Careful in the trees. Seemed like a mutt was chasing the 5 girl yesterday that moved around up there. Could be dangerous with something like that you know."

Something about the smile Rue gives back unsettles Thresh a little though he's not sure why.

"Don't worry about any monsters Thresh… I'll be fine."

"If they can't catch me they can't kill me."

"If a mutt is in the trees. I think I can handle it."

And Rue Priestly darts away.

Thresh pauses for only a moment before he realises that Rue didn't seem to believe him about the mutt.

That's foolish in Thresh's opinion.

Thresh hopes Rue isn't getting overconfident. By the way the 5 girl ran whatever thing is in the trees is pretty damn dangerous.

**Day 10 **

It's day ten and Thresh is determined to figure out what the boy from 3 has been doing all this time.

He's almost certain that the boy is near the cornucopia from the fires that come from the area at night but he has yet to figure out what the boy's strategy is.

Thresh hates the games. Since he was four years old he has been terrified of being reaped. Ironically given his size and the hard work he can do he hasn't ever taken tesserae. The Peacekeepers like a big uncomplaining worker and Thresh's sister then Thresh himself fit that to a tee. Best to keep the big ones alive so the work gets done. If the weaklings starve that just weeds out the slow workers.

District 11 is a cruel place.

Thresh's reaping was genuinely bad luck. A worker as efficient as Thresh isn't easy to come by in 11.

Still Thresh was paranoid he'd get reaped anyway and it's a good thing he was because Thresh knows more about the games than most in 11.

Enough to know that the 3 boy being in the final four is a blaring warning siren of "Bad,Bad,Bad!"

Maybe he was the one to finish off The Career Pack. It wouldn't be the first, second, third or even fourth time for a tribute from 3 to do so.

The 3's at least kill quickly and efficiently usually.

The events of the 17th games being the biggest exception to the rule.

How 3 is still underestimated by so many other districts Thresh doesn't know.

People must have short memories.

Thresh doesn't underestimate the 3 boy though and approaches the cornucopia on the morning of the tenth day as stealthily as possible.

A voice stops him.

"You might not want to step there 11. It would be the last thing you ever do."

A short distance away the fox faced girl from 5 smiles at him.

Something sharp glints in both her hands.

"Stop. Slow down. Destress 11. I'm not going to attack." The girl says quickly showing the throwing stars she has clutched in both hands.

"These are just a precautionary measure against the vicious thing in the treetops." The girl rattles off quickly.

"The Mutt?" Thresh mutters eyeing the trees warily despite himself.

"The Mutt?" The 5 girl questions. Then her face falls slightly into almost an expression of sympathy. "You don't know?"

"Don't know what? Why you stopped me. Course not!" Thresh replies coolly. His eyes swivel then lock on her hands.

"You really don't know" 5 mumbles before eyeing Thresh sympathetically once again "I'm sorry 11. I really am. I don't want to be the one to have to tell you. I'd have rather you guessed yourself. I'm surprised you haven't figured it out. After all you saw me running from her the day before yesterday."

Thresh realises then. He realises what the girl's implying. His next words are laced with anger.

"You're scared of Rue? That's insane! She's twelve! She's innocent!"

Even as he says the words he knows that's not the whole truth anymore.

The cold empty eyes of the boy from 10 with a dart in his neck are proof enough.

"That thing in the trees was a mutt. You're crazy! Or lying... I don't like liars 5." Thresh says desperately.

He hopes and prays what the 5 girl says next will prove that she's lying.

The 5 girls though says something he could never have expected.

"Who do you think got the 12s 11? You think they just killed themselves?" The 5 girl questions him.

"Everdeen was finished by tracker jackers. The 1 girl got Mellark with an arrow and Cato cut him." Thresh asserts his voice laden with conviction. "I said I don't like liars 5!"

In the background of his head though a voice is starting to nag away.

What the 5 girl says has got Thresh thinking.

He remembers back to what Rue had actually said. He recalls her words exactly. A good memory is too important an attribute to ignore in the games after all.

"_Katniss was finished by tracker jackers."_

Everdeen was finished by tracker jackers. That's what Rue had said. Tracker jacker poison can kill and that's what Thresh thought she meant.

"But what if the poison didn't kill her?" The voice in Thresh's head whispers to him.

He's seen workers before in 11 who got too near the nests and got stung. If you're stung a couple times it's an insane amount of pain and days of hallucinations.

You're dead to the world.

You're not actually dead though.

But you would be oh so easy to kill.

Thresh thinks back to what Rue said next.

"_I really wanted to help her but I just couldn't in the end."_

Rue wanted to help Everdeen but if Everdeen was stung badly, unconscious to the world, and the faces of The Career Pack appeared in the sky…

Thresh feels physically sick.

He remembers that night. A few minutes after the final face appeared another cannon rang out.

An alliance with Everdeen while the pack was alive would be a great idea. With the pack dead…

Thresh fully comprehends what happened.

Throughout his realisation the 5 girl is watching him. Pity is the only expression he sees on her face.

Bile is near the back of Thresh's throat as he manages to croak out his next question.

"What happened to Mellark?"

5 answers as if reciting a page from a textbook.

"He was camouflaged lying in the mud. He had a very bad wound in his leg. I'm surprised he didn't bleed out completely. She found him in the late morning. I was watching from nearby of course but she didn't see me while she did it. Mellark looked completely distraught. I don't even think he was surprised when she plunged the arrow into his heart."

"I think he'd wanted to die since he saw Everdeen's face the previous night."

"_Cato cut him bad with a sword, but it was an arrow that killed him in the end."_

Thresh wants to shout at the 5 girls that she's lying. He want to shout at her that Rue is sweet and innocent. The 10 boy was a fluke that was done to save him.

The 10 boy was a fluke.

Everdeen died from tracker jacker stings.

Mellark was killed by the careers.

Thresh wants to shout all that but he knows in his heart it isn't true.

The truth is in the 5 girl's words.

His district partner isn't the same girl she was before the games.

Her hands are already drenched in blood and Thresh knows now that he wouldn't be killing innocent little Rue any more.

That Rue is as dead as the three people she's killed.

5 girl is still standing and watching him.

Now he realises why.

"You don't think you can fight her alone do you?" Thresh says. "That's why you stopped me moving forward. Why was that dangerous anyway?"

"Land mine. 3 Boy has rigged the entire glade that has the cornucopia with them. Even I don't know exactly where everything is. I reckon it's probably why we're still all fighting each other rather than being brought together. He's armed, well supplied and has one hundred and forty four mines strategically placed around him. Mines which only he knows the exact location of. Any of us missteps then its boom. Boom. Boom. Boom."

"Fucking 3" Thresh curses.

5 girl smiles and replies:

"My thoughts exactly"

Thresh realises he quite likes the girl from 5. She's wily and from the sound of it not a killer yet.

At this point she's a better person than anyone else in the arena.

She doesn't have has blood on her hands. He only has one death, and that's the boy from 7. An act he doesn't want to repeat if he can avoid it now. He doesn't want to become less of what he is. To become unrecognisable.

Not like what he suspects is happening to Rue.

"You know where most of the mines are?" Thresh asks.

It might be the final four but Thresh will hold out on not being changed as long as possible.

The 5 Girl might not be a truly "good" person, no one still in the games could be anymore, but the 3 boy needs to be taken out sooner rather than later and he'd rather work with a person who seems to at least partially want to make it out of the games as a semi-decent human. .

Thresh tries to ignore the whispers in the back of his mind that the 5 girl can do what he doesn't want to contemplate doing even now. Thresh doesn't like to think about the fact Rue might need to be an even higher priority target than the boy from 3. He'd rather kill the enemy he knows he can finish rather than the twelve year old he got reaped alongside. No matter what she might have become.

"Yep I know where a lot of them are. Apart from obvious signs like slightly disturbed earth I have a good idea about where roughly eighty of th-" The 5 girl begins before beginning to choke.

She tries to speak several more time during the following ten seconds she remains standing before she falls like a puppet with its strings cut.

Thresh barely registers the movement in the trees just after the cannon sounds.

The only thing he can focus on is the dart in the 5 girl's neck.

**Day 11 **

There are 3 people left in the arena of the 74th games and Thresh is the only one of them that hasn't killed multiple people. The bulky eighteen year-old has killed one person in self-defence during the bloodbath.

The slight boy from 3 who can't be over fifteen has killed three people.

The twelve year old from 11 who doesn't even reach five foot tall has killed four.

Thresh doesn't know what to think anymore.

The world has gone topsy-turvy and somehow Thresh thinks that in The Capitol he might even be seen as the underdog.

The Capitol might not be wrong in this case...

Thresh is caught between The Devil, that his district partner has become, and the Deep Blue Sea, that is the boy from 3 and his ocean of mines.

The final confrontation is coming and soon. .

It is inevitable.

Somehow it is not today though.

Thresh has been waiting for the water to dry, a mutt attack, a bloody natural disaster. Any of those things that would drive tributes together.

There is nothing.

Somehow the Capitol is content to wait.

Instead it is a day filled with tension.

Thresh barely sleeps that night.

**Day 12**

He must drift off somehow because that morning he is woken up by an explosion.

Then he hears another.

And another.

Thresh moves closer to the cornucopia glade.

The Rue that isn't "his" Rue is triggering mines, with thrown rocks, as the boy from 3 watches on from the cornucopia in bafflement at Rue's audacity and more than a little bit of fear.

Each mine would proabably be deadly to anyone standing on it but they've been spaced well apart. Thresh quickly sees what Rue is doing.

She is clearing a path from the trees to the boy from 3.

Thresh doesn't know why he does it but he bounds into the glade the cornucopia lies, though he is careful to avoid any part of the ground that looks disturbed in any way.

By some miracle he does not step on any mine.

Within moments he is next to the boy from 3.

As he looks in the boys eyes there is some fear but mostly just acceptance.

Thresh makes his second kill of the games as his scythe slices through the air towards the 3 boy's neck.

A cannon goes.

Then silence.

"Why?"

That is all she says when the boy from 3 falls to the ground in two pieces.

"You've killed too many Rue." Thresh says. He tries to be firm. He tries not to have the statement laced with the heavy disappointment in her he feels.

Or his horror at what Rue has become.

"But Thresh I onl-" Rue begins.

"Only killed one person? Or was it two? Three? Four? Don't try that Rue because I know now Rue! I know the truth. Four people Rue. You've killed four people. Then… Then you lied to me about it" Thresh states. "How Rue? How could you?"

Thresh watches as the little girl he was reaped with changes before his eyes. Her face hardens and her expression transforms. She is someone else now… Determined, calculating, righteous…

And cold.

Thresh realises it is not a coldness born of dismissing emotion. It's a different coldness. An aid to get home to see family that has allowed her to create a wall around the actions she's taken and continues to take.

Thresh hasn't developed this coldness yet. Until the boy from 3 he hadn't killed anyone but the boy from 7. He hasn't planned any kills. Hasn't committed murder in the truest sense of the term.

Rue has developed this coldness though.

Thresh thinks she had to develop it the second she decided to do what she did to Everdeen.

His heart is fully broken when Rue finally speaks.

"I never lied to you Thresh! I just didn't tell the whole truth. It didn't matter. It doesn't matter Thresh."

"I've done what I've had to do Thresh! I'm so close now! I can see my brothers and sisters. My mom and dad. I can go home!"

Another part of Thresh dies a little inside as Rue raises her blow gun to her lips.

Thresh is almost hit by the dart that follows seconds later.

Thresh is fighting for his life now.

He dodges and weaves while Rue runs out of range of his scythe and keeps firing.

If a dart hits Thresh he's dead.

If Rue missteps on the boy from 3's mines she's just as dead.

Neither make a mistake for nearly eight minutes.

In fact neither party ever makes a proper mistake of that nature.

Thresh ends the duel by chucking a hand axe located in the huge pile of supplies the boy from 3 had hoarded.

He had hid behind the pile just to last a few seconds longer.

The hand axe a last ditch effort to stop the onslaught of darts.

He just wanted the darts to stop.

He just wanted to live.

It strikes Rue Priestly in the stomach. A mortal wound. She looks down in shock for a moment at it then tries to walk forward. She makes it a few steps before collapsing to her knees.

Thresh is horrified.

What has he done? How could he do it? This is not the way it was supposed to be. Not like this. He goes to her and begs her to say something. Anything.

Rue only says six words.

"I just wanted to go home."

Those words make Thresh feel like even more of a monster if it were possible.

"I'm sorry Rue. I'm so sorry."

The little girl he met the day of the reaping seem to reappear then. The smile she gives him is one laced with pain but it seems like it conveys forgiveness.

What Thresh does next he does out of mercy.

Quickly he breaks the blade of his scythe so only the sharpened last few inches remain like a dagger.

Thresh is in tears as he stabs her in the heart with it.

He can't watch her linger on in pain. He can't do it. Even after what she's done.

He's still crying, as he hugs Rue, when her cannon goes twenty seconds after the makeshift dagger has done it's work.

He continues hugging her, tears still running down his cheeks, long after the trumpets announcing his victory sound.

* * *

_Hello Vesine here _

_The got pretty dark pretty fast. It's almost as though I marked this fanfic as a tragedy/drama. _

_It's certainly not a romance. _

_If you enjoy this fanfic please read my other ongoing fanfic The Grim Grey Path to Freedom. It is a labour of love and I'd appreciate any favs, follows and reviews of it. _

_Also if you feel like it do the same for this fanfic as well. _

_This fic is more of a scratched itch from something that bugged me in the original novel and movie as opposed to full storylines. _

_In case anyone's wondering the victors are being done in my opinion of the likelihood of them winning after the initial first chapter. _

_As you can probably tell certain event will be explored as we progress along each au from the initial decision. _

_The 5 victors will all be based around little butterfly effect actions that happen each day resulting in each tribute winning in a different way as events change. _

_This fanfic is incredibly fun in thinking of ideal points of divergence. _

_Next chapter is Finch McCarthy because everyone loves Fox face right? _

_Rue doesn't. Rue definitely doesn't. _


	4. Finch McCarthy

Finch McCarthy

**Day 7 **

**04:37**

As she struggles to try to get to sleep again after waking up Finch sometimes wonders what her grandmother would be thinking about her right now.

Her Grandmother who was always so proud of the big sister who had died over sixty years earlier and nearly won the hunger games against a career.

In Finch's home when she was younger the name Electra Dent was spoken about with pride.

The girl who nearly came home in the 10th games.

The girl who cut down four people while scoring a four that in hindsight was nowhere near accurate.

The girl who had inflicted a wound that would have killed her final opponent, the Victor of the 10th games, stone dead in only a few minutes more had he not made a desperate final lunge that skewered her through the heart.

None of Finch's family had ever been to The Capitol but they knew Electra was still remembered.

Every year the specials are on television. The second places who could have won the games if the final duel had gone just a little differently.

Every year footage of her clever great aunt is plastered all over the screens. Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith whisper in awe about the 5 girl who pulled off a Gilbert Oxford or Johanna Mason before such a concept properly existed.

Electra Dent was the original black sheep of the games. The surprise low scorer that no one anywhere saw coming until the moment she nearly killed the eventual victor with a throwing star on the second day. She was the one tribute that the heartless first Victor of 5, who won the 2nd games and managed to become the First Lady of Panem within 5 years of her victory, might have had a twinge of regret about failing to get out if rumours were true.

Electra loomed large over Finch's childhood.

But that was then. Before the first event that led to the chain of misery that followed and shaped Finch's path forward in life.

The death of her mother in an accident at work.

The spiral of her father into drinking that eventually resulted in a fall into a reservoir.

The slow demise of her grandmother struck down by cancer so developed and aggressive that even The Capitol would have struggled to do more than delay the inevitable.

The death of her older brother in a bar fight after he succumbed to the same vice as her father from grief after all the deaths.

The fatal accident that befell her younger brother, killed playing on the train tracks, while she tried to sell what little items they had remaining for food.

Finch was twelve years old by the time the last event in the chain happened.

Finch has no one now. No one talks to her but the acquaintances she has in the underbelly of 5 who think highly of the girl with a knack for stealing things.

Expensive things.

The peacekeeper crackdown came swiftly and they needed a scapegoat.

McCarthy is still eligible for The Games she imagined they said.

Why not put her name forward?

Get the rest of us out of it.

Never mind that it was a death sentence in 5 even though the peacekeepers didn't officially punish her. No whipping in District 5 for minors… not with "The System" in place. The Districts guilty little secret would see the girl punished properly as it had so many others.

No random event would save the top candidate this time and she was it.

The most optimistic, or cruel, of Finch's associates might have even have laughed that Finch was so good at stealing she might very well avoid what her punishment was truly meant to be and come home a Victor.

They probably didn't think that was a real possibility.

Only now it is.

They were arseholes for putting her on the path to get here but Finch knows now she can win.

She's known it since last night.

The Career pack she should have seen coming.

Never, ever forget a 3 is a danger when they're still alive in the arena. The technology district does not have nine Victors by a fluke even if they do die in the bloodbath more often than not. Give a 3 an inch and they'll take a mile. Physical frailty does not always equal absolute weakness. The fact the idiots who constituted The Career Pack forgot that means they just weren't victor material.

As the boy from 3 cut their throats, while humming a jaunty tune, she felt more than a little vindication to her prior thoughts that the weak 3 boy might be a danger. As she watched from her hiding place she thought he might be the big surprise of the games.

She now thinks she might have been wrong.

The writhing forms of the career pack before the 3 finished them had brought to mind that somewhere else in the arena others might be suffering from tracker jacker venom as well.

Finch knows the signs of that. Most of 5 would not.

When she finds the little girl from 11 near Everdeen, who was still writhing and hallucinating from stings, at sunset just before the cannons, she dismisses the little girl's presence immediately.

Right up until 11 smothers the life out of Everdeen shortly after the face of Cato fades from the sky.

Finch's laugh that follows is partly out of humour.

Alright mostly out of humour.

The 12 girl had been arrogant, self-centred and in actuality more than a little disappointing in her actual games performance than a score of 11 warranted from what Finch has seen so far.

To see The Capitol favourite die to a little girl was undeniably amusing.

Although the girl from 11 is hardly a hunchbacked king of old lusting for power, Finch can't help but remember the history books she possesses of the time before, the rumour always whispered that Richard the 3rd had killed his vulnerable nephews in a similar way to how 11 killed Everdeen.

It's the expression on 11s face that brings the scenario to mind.

The regret painted on 11's face marred with a steely determination to get the deed done had sent a shiver down Finch's spine.

It seems 11 wants a crown just like Richard of House York.

The crown of a Victor.

It's at that point that Finch feel's 11 has earned the right to be called by her proper name in Finch's head.

Just as Everdeen in many respects loses the same right by dying to a twelve year old.

Although the Rue that kills the 12 girl seems drastically different from anything Finch could have expected from the Rue in training although in hindsight the warning signs were there:

A stolen knife Finch observed out of the corner of her eye.

A scamper up the ropes.

An enraged career.

An outlier that is targeted for a crime he didn't commit having been framed by the true thief.

The eventual repercussion being ones less tribute making it out of the bloodbath after being targeted personally by Cato and less focus spent on the little girl from 11 by The Careers.

Perhaps it was amusing to the other tributes who saw. Most of them probably forgot it even happened.

Finch didn't though and with that in mind little Rue seems far more vicious than first appears. All Finch can think of once she's realised that are the infamous mutts of the 30th games that looked cuddly and sweet at first as well.

There was nothing of the tributes left that those mutts got their many sharp teeth into in those games.

Not their clothes.

Not their flesh.

Not their bones.

Not even their district tokens.

Maybe it was a fluke though and perhaps Rue isn't a monster yet.

Because if the twelve year old girl who's meant to be dead by now is truly a threat then Finch might well be fucked.

**07:49 **

She is well and truly fucked.

Finch realises it at seven forty-eight that morning as another cannon went and Mellark died in front of her eyes.

Little Rue had an early start to the day, at about six forty-five, and Finch was camped close enough to hear the quiet beeping of the silver parachute that came down.

If 11 was hungry before she certainly wasn't after the parachutes arrival.

It was a breakfast full of things Finch can only dream about. Things that will keep for days like cheese, dried meat and nuts. Calorific but long lasting. A meal sent by a mentor who thinks their tributes is in it for the long haul.

It's a large meal as well. A meal sent to a tribute who made an excellent kill.

A meal that was the result of a Capitol favourite dying.

A meal for a front runner.

Finch doesn't know why, and she knows it's irrational, but the sponsorship gift scares her more than she'd like to think about.

If people are investing money in the little girl they think she has a chance of winning now. Given the size of the breakfast it was also a lot of money as well.

It isn't long after finishing off some of the cheese that little Rue takes to the trees and Finch goes from very concerned of the tiny 11 to downright terrified.

In the trees Rue is fast. Very, very fast. She shimmy's up the tree quickly, and this doesn't surprise Finch too much from watching the girl in training, but it is when Rue is in the branches themselves that Finch finally figures out how the girl scored a 7.

Rue begins going from tree to tree above like a bird quickly flying from branch to branch.

She can barely keep up on the ground trying to follow Rue and Finch has always been quick.

Slow thieves don't stay thieves for long after all.

11 is frightening in her speed in the trees though and Finch can only shudder when she remembers another twelve year old from 3 who had similar skills in climbing and movement in the 13th games.

That girl came second, killed 2 people directly and also provided a distraction that allowed her ally to cut a third victim's throat open.

Finch purposefully tries to avoid thinking about the other victor (who also happened to be from 3) also renowned for their climbing skills.

She hopes to god that Rue doesn't become anything like that and not just for Finch's sake.

No one aims to become a monster after all when they enter the games.

Except maybe the first Victor from 6.

Finch manages to stay with the flying girl for a while until they reach a muddy embankment. Something has given Rue pause and Finch watches as the girl looks down like a magpie on something shiny.

Or a bird of prey on a mouse.

The little girl lithely moves off the tree, to the ground, with a shocking speed and goes over to the embankment.

She can't see anything but clearly Rue has.

Suddenly the embankment seems to move slightly. There is a person there!

Finch thinks it must be Mellark.

He's hidden himself under the mud and weeds and was almost invisible to see.

Finch is pretty sure the two are talking now but she isn't quite close enough to hear them. She attempts to move closer but is stopped when she sees Rue pull out an arrow from her little bag pack.

That Rue immediately plunges into Mellark's chest.

As Finch watches The Boy from 12 doesn't make any move to stop it. Finch think he might have just let Rue kill him.

Which Finch thinks must mean that, either he was too badly injured and it was a mercy kill, or without Everdeen he didn't want to live anymore.

Frankly Finch isn't sure which options worse.

The cannon goes after less than a half a minute of the arrow being in Mellark's chest and Finch runs.

She runs as far and as fast as she can away from the girl who's killed two of the leading tributes in the hunger games.

Finch has no idea what happens next.

**Day 8 **

**8:00am **

Finch is hungry.

Unlike Rue she hasn't had any sponsorship gifts yet and after what she saw last night and so far this morning the careers supplies aren't really an option anymore.

The 3 boy is an absolute bastard.

Not enough that he killed the career pack but he's now made the Cornucopia into his own personal fortress.

Finch watched him do it from up in a tree.

The mines he had clearly dug up on the night the careers died after he gave up hunting, thirty or so minutes after Everdeen's cannon went, clearly deciding that wasn't where his strengths lay.

Instead each and every mine from around the Cornucopia has been dug up and set elsewhere. Finch is observant but it takes even her longer than she'd like to find the signs of the mines in the grass.

Once she has figured out the system she only manages to count about 80 or so before realising significant numbers are missing.

It's only by luck that she figures it out. A glint of something shiny under some weeds on the rim of the cornucopia.

Because the bastard has hidden some in the foliage surrounding the glade.

One step and it's the last thing most tributes would ever do.

Meanwhile the 3 boy is sitting prettily in the centre of The Cornucopia supplies enough for a month surrounding him.

As she contemplates all of this she starts feeling angrier as a silver parachute falls from the sky.

Surrounded by weapons, food and the biggest source of water in the games Finch is puzzled at what it could be.

The assholes, in the Capitol, have given the 3 boy a violin.

3 boy is delighted by the gift and quickly proves to the Capitol they were right to send it to him.

Finch will admit that the boy plays beautifully. Very beautifully. It's fairly soft though and unless a tribute was relatively close bye they wouldn't hear it very well.

Finch curses as she realises what the violin symbolises.

3 boy thinks he's so safe that he can play his music and not have to worry about any of the other tributes.

Why would he? Most ranged weapons would struggle to reach him and the odd few that could are no risk if he darts back into The Cornucopia. In addition he has a defence surrounding him that will take out any tribute whose not observant or has seen him put it into place.

She stays watching him though as he finishes the piece until he turns directly in her direction, looks up at her spot, where she thought herself well hidden, and winks at her.

Then blows her a kiss.

Finch is livid then.

That performance was not just arrogance directed at the rest of the tributes but also deliberately mocking her in particular.

He must have seen her watch him set up the mines and the bastard knows…

He knows that the defence system is enough to protect himself against the other tributes and even Finch knowing where a lot of them are isn't a threat.

3 boy begins laughing then. He begins laughing at her.

She can't take it anymore and gets out of there.

The 3 boy's laughter still echoing behind her.

**13:17pm**

On reflection it might have made more sense to steal from the boy from District 10. He's still got some food and can't move quickly at all. It would have been easy to go in gather some food and then get out.

Yep it would have been easy to steal from District 10.

Instead though Finch thought that it was a good idea to steal from little District 11.

Rue only had a slingshot.

Those were her thoughts as she pilfered a significant chunk of cheese and a few cuts of dried meat from Rue's little nest that she had made.

She couldn't see Rue nearby and it seemed a good idea at the time.

It wasn't a good idea.

She knew that for certain when the girl came back with a groosling that was definitely dead and had a dart sticking out of its neck.

Little Rue sure has a temper on her that's for certain.

Because now Finch is running for her life and she realizes once again that the girl from 11 is a demon in the trees.

She almost has a heart attack when a dart hits a tree less than 2 feet away from her.

Finch guesses that if one of Rue's darts hits her she is going to be as dead as the groosling she saw.

Finch does not know what possesses her but she veers towards the corn field where Thresh is. It's a big corn field and Thresh tends to lurk near the centre so if she sticks to the outskirts maybe the big 11 boy won't break her in half. It's the only place other than the cornucopia where there aren't trees for Rue to lurk in.

She's managed to put some distance between her and Rue now but has been running at full pelt for close to five minutes. As she bursts through into the slope that leads to the cornfield she feels a moment of temporary relief.

Finch will only need to hide there for a second or two and then-

Finch is having a really crap day because Thresh seems to have chosen that moment to come out of the cornfield.

Finch is frozen in fear for a moment and her brain seems stuck as to who is the biggest threat:

Rue who has killed two people in the past forty eight hours and had poison darts now.

Thresh who could probably break the neck easily of any tribute left in the arena, bar the lame boy from 10, as easy as popping open a soda bottle cap.

Finch decides that the forest might be slightly safe. If she zig zags she might even lose Rue who seems to have paused at the sight of Thresh while she's in the trees above.

Finch makes the right choice as it gives her a chance to escape.

It was close today though. Too close.

Finch can't help but be frustrated. The arena was meant to get easier after the death of The Career Pack and The Lovers from 12.

Not harder.

**Day 9 **

Even Finch heard the sound of combat from where she's been hiding all day so when a cannon goes it isn't much of a shock.

What is a shock is the fact that it was Rue who killed the 10 boy.

Damn Rue scares Finch more and more each day. Cato was eighteen and had been training all his life for the games. Rue is twelve years old, has no training, and at this point has gotten more kills than quite a few of the career pack managed.

Only Thresh doesn't seem to realise that fact because he's happily chatting to Rue as the little girl tells what can only be generously described as half truths about what happened to Mellark and Everdeen as Finch hides watching and listening nearby.

"_Katniss was finished by Tracker Jackers"_ Rues says mournfully.

"But she was alive until I smothered the life out of her with my little bag pack." Adds Finch mentally in her head.

"_Cato cut him bad with a sword, but it was an arrow that killed him in the end"_ Rue answers with a sorrowful expression when Thresh asks about Mellark.

"An arrow I stabbed him with in the chest as he lay barely able to move in the mud." Adds Finch mentally in her head once again.

Finch decides it's a tossup now on who the most sinister tribute left in the games is.

The boy who cut the throats of the career pack as they lay immobile and unable to defend themselves from tracker jacker stings or the sweet little girl from 11 who is currently playing her tribute partner like the 3 boys violin.

Finch can't believe she's in the final four with those two.

Thresh has somehow become the least dangerous of the three.

Finch needs something insanely lucky to happen to get out of this.

**Day 10**

Finch already regretted her choice seconds after it was made.

She could have warned the boy from 11 about the mines. That would have been the decent human thing to do.

It's what she should have done.

Instead she crept up behind the big 11 boy and pushed him forward.

She didn't know.

She didn't know that one mine wouldn't kill him instantly.

She didn't know…

Afterwards she couldn't look at the 11 boy screaming in pain.

The mine had only blown off his legs. He wasn't even heavily bleeding. Finch wasn't sure if it was the force of the explosion ripping the limbs away or a cauterising effect or what. Instead the only thing she could see or hear was the 11 boy screaming in pain.

Within seconds Rue was at his side.

That startled Finch. By the look of it Rue had been tracking her. Probably to kill her. Instead Thresh now had a monopoly on Rue's attention. For all the 11 girl's flaws she still cared for her district partner.

Finch ran.

Finch is sure that the little girl spent time trying to save her District partner. There was little blood after all so it might even have been possible. A minute later though Finch heard a cannon ring out.

What had she done?

She was meant to be a good person. Now she's no better than Rue, or the boy from 3 or even the dead Cato.

Those thoughts stay with her the rest of the day as a parachute finally comes down with food and a pack of throwing stars.

She tries to let it comfort her.

Maybe she has a chance still.

Maybe she can win.

She sleeps fitfully that night.

**Day 11**

**5:34 am **

It happens just when night starts to turn into the beginning of dawn and Finch is barely awake when it occurs.

When she first hears the sound.

The humming of a tune in the trees above.

There for a moment then gone just as quickly.

Finch went rigid the second she heard the first sounds and crawled deeper into the burrow she made in the roots of a large tree on the third day of the games.

She's always been compared to a fox so she suppose it's fitting she's behaved like one in the arena.

Foxes shouldn't be afraid of birds is what she tells herself now as she knows who is up above her.

Then she remembers that Foxes aren't the only animal that burrows and right now Finch feels more like a mouse.

A mouse that a particularly vicious bird is after.

Finch can't go any deeper into her burrow when she hears a voice.

"Come out, come out little 5. Don't you want to play the game?" The voice says gently "You did earlier after all. When you did what you did to Thresh!" The voice finishes with rage.

It sounds a lot like the girl from 11.

Only not even close.

Rue sounded sweet and innocent, even after all she'd done, when she was speaking to Thresh.

The voice above is not the sweet tribute from 11 anymore, it's not even the controlled killer the person behind the voice had turned into since The Career Pack was taken out.

That Rue still had mercy.

The current voice makes a distinct promise of none.

Finch thinks rationally. In the dark Finch can see well quite naturally, the benefits of being a thief in the night back home, and with the throwing stars she now has Finch has a good chance of taking out Rue.

Finch is about to go when something gives her pause for thought.

Rue is confident which means somehow there is something that Rue thinks gives her an advantage.

Tributes have done odd things in the past when their district partners have been killed. Some have given up, some have fought on for the win in honour of their fallen partners, and some have just ignored their partner's deaths.

There is another kind of tribute though.

It doesn't happen as often but when it does it can get very bad indeed.

Some tributes seek revenge on behalf of their district partners or on behalf of others they liked or allied with in the games. A few even became Victors.

The worst kind of Victors.

The Victors who killed in a manner that was torturous or inhumane.

A boy who was cut to pieces oh so slowly.

An injured girl pushed into a pack of starving mutts that were some of the worst seen in the games up to that point.

Any of the career pack who died during the 28th games.

Finch shudders.

She isn't sure if Rue would be like that. Or what Rue is capable of doing. She isn't willing to find out though under any circumstance.

A few victims over the years have taken hours to die.

Many, many hours.

**8:00pm**

Rue is there all day.

Waiting for Finch to appear from her burrow in that section of the woods.

Finch is thankful that the 11 girl doesn't know exactly where she is. Finch almost risked popping her head out a few times to see if she's still there but hasn't risked it.

Finch knows she made the right decision when she hears Rue curse.

"A rabbit! A rabbit! All day waiting and just a rabbit. I'm sick of waiting for you, for now, 5. I'm dealing with 3 first but don't forget 5 you will die for Thresh." Rue says with a cold anger.

"It will be painful"

"And you'll wish you'd have stepped on a mine instead"

Finch hears tears after that from the little girl.

"I'll keep my promise Thresh. I'll keep my promise."

Then Finch hears Rue leap away through the trees.

Finch still doesn't move.

She's still far too scared to.

**Day 12**

It's early when Finch is woken up by an explosion.

For a moment she's relieved. As long as Rue is dead she can probably take down 3 with her throwing stars with a bit of luck.

Then she hears another explosion and realizes that something different is happening.

She sneaks close to the cornucopia glade and watches as mine after mine is triggered by the 11 girl.

Why didn't Finch think of that?

Probably because she didn't have any weapons at the time to fight him afterwards.

3 boy looks frightened but as the mines continue to trigger she can almost see the plan forming in his mind.

Quickly she sees 3 start rifling through his pile of weapons until he locates a set of throwing knives.

They were probably Clove's.

3 is waiting for Rue and Rue can see it.

This could make for an interesting final duel.

One to which Finch has a front row seat incidentally.

The pair exchange words but Finch is still too far to hear before they go for each other.

As final duels go it's not particularly a battle. It's more like a quick shootout.

A knife leaves a hand.

A dart leaves a blow gun.

The 3 boy falls.

Rue does not.

She will soon though because a throwing knife is sticking out of her chest. It's clearly not in her heart however because she's still standing.

Rue in a state of shock pulls the knife out and looks at it with curiosity.

"Oh."

Finch chooses that moment to pick her way across the field in the path left by the exploded mines.

The little girl from 11 tries to bring the blow gun up to her lips but her fingers don't quite seem to be working.

The blow gun falls to the floor.

As Finch goes close to the dying 11 girl she wonders how she was ever afraid of her.

The 11 girl is swaying on her feet now and Finch almost pity's her.

Right before the girl from 11s eyes harden once more and a throwing knife hurtles through the air right towards Finch.

It cuts Finch's arm deeply.

If she hadn't moved in time it would have hit her chest.

Rue gives one last wet cough followed by flecks of blood, but she is smiling at Finch, as she says her final words.

"Worth a try"

The girl from 11 falls to the floor then, a bloodstained smiled still on her lips, and the final cannon goes.

Finch can only think one thing about her victory as the trumpets ring out.

How the hell did she win?

* * *

_Hello Vesine here _

_Finch was fun. Personally I don't think turning Finch into a killer of multiple tributes would really suit Finch's character. On the other hand Marko Amon (3) is a relative blank slate and since Rue makes her initial decision in chapter one all bets are off. _

_In case anyone is wondering Rue is going to be the final chapter. _

_If you are starting to see a pattern in how the individual stories are going you're right. _

_In each chapter so far a lucky break happens for each individual victorious tribute negating the lucky breaks of others. _

_As a warning things aren't going to get more cheerful from here. _

_This is a tragedy after all. _

_As always reviews like and follows are very welcome and much appreciated. _

_All the best Vesine _


End file.
